Locomotives may include a system for receiving and logging operational data for use in troubleshooting or diagnosing a locomotive failure. These systems may include an event recorder that collects and communicates vehicle performance data received from multiple subsystems within the locomotive. An important purpose of the event recorder is to provide a source of data that can be retrieved from the event recorder after an event such as an accident, and provide a detailed and accurate accounting of exactly what happened leading up to and during the event. In some systems, the data is collected periodically or in response to a triggering event or fault condition. Each locomotive may have its own event recorder.
If an accident occurs, such as a derailment, crash, or other mishap, the event recorder data may be useful to help determine the cause of the event, or conditions that may have contributed to the event. In a catastrophic event, one or more event recorders may be destroyed along with the locomotive on which the event recorder is operating. Each event recorder records unique data associated with the corresponding locomotive, and at times, the entire consist. If an event recorder is destroyed in a catastrophic event, important data unique to that locomotive may also be destroyed. Therefore, it may be desirable to provide an event recorder system that provides redundant data storage across all event recorders operating on a single train. Since redundant data storage may consume large portions of memory, it may also be desirable for dynamic data storage that operates according to operational factors, such as, for example, locomotive velocity, alarms, detected physical hazards, or one or more potential hazards.
One system for storing operational data for a vehicle is disclosed U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0282525 (“the '525 publication”). The '525 publication describes a communication system for monitoring operation of transceiver pairs, and communicating network data over a cable bus if one of the transceivers enters a failure condition. The system includes a switch module that monitors operation of the transceiver pair, and sends the network data from at least one transceiver unit in the redundant pair if a transceiver failure is detected.
Although the system provided by the '525 publication may provide for routing redundant data from a failing transceiver, it may be less than optimal. In particular, the '525 publication does not provide a system that allows for simultaneous and dynamic data storage based on data storage rules. Additionally, the '525 publication does not take operational factors into consideration, which continually change during the operation of the locomotive.
The presently disclosed systems and methods are directed to overcoming and/or mitigating one or more of the possible drawbacks set forth above and/or other problems in the art.